Singular life
Key to survival
Petronella Wyatt
There we were, my mother and I, wait- ing on the tarmac while technicians lamely studied some equipment in the cockpit. The plane had left Mauritius 13 hours before. We should have been over Surrey. Instead, a bird had flown into the engine and the pilot had been forced to stop in Brussels. Yup, my airport curse had struck again.
No one seemed to know what was hap- pening. They just knew things were tough. The bird, which was evidently bionic, had destroyed three steel shafts in the engine. We couldn't take off again until the shafts were repaired. Never mind. We were no longer in Mauritius but in good old bustling Brussels, the heart of Europe as it calls itself; the acme of efficiency, the bea- con of the future, etc.
Imagine our surprise when it was announced that the engine could not be repaired after all. Although it was a simple enough exercise the Brussels technicians didn't feel like working any more that day. We were all to spend the night at the air- port. Hopefully the local Sheraton would be prepared to put us up. We were told to leave the plane and col- lect our luggage from Arrivals. We waited for an hour. Everywhere were signs pro- claiming Brussels the most competently run metropolis in Europe. Finally we serried cranks were hustled over the road to the Brussels Sheraton.
Sheratons everywhere are about as allur- ing as a flooded pissoir but this one was a hotel to hang oneself in. Visibly shaking with cold we were taken up to what was called a luxury room. It might have served as such in the tropics for the air-condition- ing was blowing freezing blasts into the room. It will soon warm up, promised the man. He didn't look hopeful. I needed a drink, badly, like one of those characters out of Raymond Chandler. Only the mini- bar was locked and there was no key.
`Where's the key to the mini-bar?' I demanded of reception with a growl. 'You can't have it.' Why not?' Because you haven't paid for it.' Of course I haven't. I haven't had it yet.' If you want anything from the mini-bar you must come down- stairs and pay for all its contents in advance.' All its contents? I was only staying for one night. How could I possibly consume four bottles of beer, three cans of Coke, two Oranginas, three bottles of Evian, eight mini-spirit bottles, three sodas, two cartons of orange juice, three bottles of wine and one bottle of champagne?
`You might.'
Could we just have a teensy bottle of water, then? The man was all sweetness and spite. He said he would have to receive spe- cial authorisation from reception. I pointed out that reception had my credit-card num- ber. In any case the heating in the room wasn't working. He said someone would come up when they had time. An hour later someone arrived. He looked at the machine and frowned. 'It's broken. The pipes are frozen. The air will only get colder.'
Soon after a plumped-up Ganymede knocked on the door. He was holding a bottle of water aloft like a flagpole. I grasped it gratefully. 'You pay now,' he said. He mentioned what seemed a very large sum of Belgian francs. 'I don't have any Belgian francs. I've just come in unex- pectedly from Mauritius.' He snatched the bottle back. 'You can't have it then.' He turned on his heels and left.
I remembered we had forgotten to ring London to tell them of our enforced delay. This involved another call, this time to the hotel operator. We said we wanted to call England. This simple and not unreasonable request was pondered. Then back came the reply. 'You may speak for three minutes.' Three minutes! I felt like a criminal. Mournfully we made ready for bed. We filled in the breakfast card they had left for us. At least in the morning we might get some coffee.
At four I woke up. It felt as though I was having a cold bath. I touched my pyjamas. They were sopping. There must be a leak from the roof. There wasn't. The damp cold caused by the air-conditioning had pro- duced freezing condensation all over my body. I felt the back of my neck. Strands of hair were as wet and brittle as icicles. Just as I had got back to sleep the telephone rang. It was room service. 'You ordered breakfast for 7 o'clock,' a voice said. 'Yes?' `Well, you can't have it.' Vindictive pause. `You haven't paid for it yet.'
After I threatened to sue the hotel they agreed to let us have breakfast. At 8.30 the telephone rang. It was a friend from Lon- don. She had been trying to contact us all morning. But the hotel claimed to have no record of us. She gave them our room number, 5140, and they insisted this was a room reserved for staff. Guests never stayed there.
I was reminded of a story Alexander Woollcott used to tell of a girl who goes with her mother to the World Exposition in Paris in 1856. The mother falls ill in the hotel. When the daughter returns from consulting a doctor in town the hotel staff claim never to have seen her before. They insist the room she spoke of occupying did not exist and that her mother could not possibly be there. Brussels had done the same thing with me. It had made me into a non-person.
Previous page
